Camping at Le Mans

 We arrived at the campsite in sunshine, but soon...

...it was doing this.
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French Expression: Un décollement de la rétine = 'a detached retina'. That's what Simon developed while camping at Le Mans recently. We feared from quite early on that his visual problem could be a detached retina, but since I didn't know the expression for it when we got to the hospital, I engaged Franglais and said we were worried it was a rétine détaché. Not by a single facial flicker did any of the SAMU nurses indicate that I had used the wrong term. They are super professional and kind! Later I was worried that I had just told them that I thought my husband had a spotless retina, but looking it up it seems they would have understood quite well what I meant, as while détachant does mean 'stain remover', détaché indeed just means 'detached' in all the same senses as English.

Colle is 'glue' in French, so décoller means 'to unstick'. Planes take off in French by 'unsticking' -- l'avion décollé (= 'the plane took off'). Clingy children are collant (= 'sticky') in French.

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A la cuisine hier: Melanzane alla Parmigiana (baked crumbed aubergine with tomato sauce, parmesan and mozzarella cheese), a nice veggie dish from Elise at Simply Recipes. 

I put up a jar of sweet gherkin pickles yesterday. The pickling process takes several days, first brining the little cukes and onions then pouring hot spiced sweetened vinegar over them. Unfortunately these are too sweet for Simon's tastes, so I'll have to do another more viciously vinegary batch.